Penn State Featured on Cover of Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated announced earlier today that Penn State would be featured on this week’s cover regionally in the Northeast. The cover marks the one year anniversary of the onset of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and reads “We Are Still Penn State: Defiance, Collective Guilt, Denial…Happy Valley One Year Later.”

My initial reaction was positive, noticing that the main headline is “We Are Still Penn State” — an appropriate rallying cry that those inside Happy Valley have been using for most of the year. But then when I saw the subheadline of “Defiance, collective guilt, revival,” I have to question just how favorable — or fair — S.L. Price’s centerpiece will depict Penn State.

You might remember the Sports Illustrated cover when the Freeh Report was released with the daunting headline “We Were Penn State.” And now, three months later, the magazine is publishing a cover with the words “We Still Are Penn State.”

Yellow journalism at its worst.

Sports Illustrated publishes every Thursday, although articles are usually posted online earlier.

Here are the last two scandal related covers from Sports Illustrated. They certainly have painted a curious (read: irresponsible) picture of Penn State over the last year.

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About the Author

Kevin Horne was the editor of Onward State from 2012-2014 and currently holds the position of Managing Editor Emeritus, which is a fake title he made up. He graduated from Penn State with degrees journalism and political science in 2014 and is currently seeking his J.D. at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law. A third generation Penn Stater from Williamsport, Pa., Kevin is also the president of the graduate student government. Email: [email protected]

Penn State’s first president Evan Pugh was born in 1828 at Jordan Bank Farm, three miles south of the city center of Oxford, Pennsylvania, an hour west of Philadelphia in Chester County. One-hundred eighty-nine years later, an Oxford brewery is honoring one of the preeminent champions of “liberal and practical” higher education in the form of a delicious Porter.

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